Floor coverings comprise important interior design elements that are frequently relied upon to unify and enhance a specific interior design concept. Over the last decade, modular carpeting—i.e., the use of carpet tiles—has become a favorite of interior designers, particularly in commercial spaces, due to its potential to mimic the appearance of conventional broadloom carpeting while, at the same time, provide a practical means by which localized portions of the carpeting can be easily replaced in the event of damage, excessive wear, staining, and the like. One specific application of the techniques disclosed herein is to automate the creation of a large number of individual carpet tiles that carry a non-repeating pattern sufficient to generate high visual interest and that disguise, to a large degree, any patterning artifacts that would otherwise be visually objectionable, yet provide one or more common design elements that visually unify a given carpet tile installation.
One of the generally acknowledged key attributes of a successful modular carpet installation, and one that is essential in achieving the look of broadloom carpet, is the inconspicuousness of the seams between contiguous carpet tiles. Where design elements within a single tile are duplicated in adjacent tiles and/or extend into adjacent tiles, and those design elements are not perfectly duplicated within each tile, the region around the seam can become visually obtrusive and can draw attention to any imperfections in the form of mismatched color or misaligned design elements. This condition, which shall be referred to as “seam discontinuity,” occurs frequently when there are design elements—for example, a simple band of color—that extend across the boundary and tend to emphasize the transition form one tile to a contiguous tile. Somewhat counter-intuitively, one way to make such transitions as unobtrusive as possible is to apply a pattern to the individual carpet tiles that provides such visual variety across the installation as a whole that the transitions between individual adjacent tiles becomes relatively less important. To the viewer, the non-regular nature of the overall pattern formed by multiple tiles visually overwhelms the discontinuities at the boundaries, with each tile having a unique pattern but one that is aesthetically consistent, in terms of color and individual pattern elements, with all other tiles in the installation.
Another key attribute of a successful modular carpet installation, or any carpet installation, for that matter, is the ability of the selected pattern to provide an unobtrusive complement to the overall interior design. Floor covering patterns are frequently selected on the basis of a relatively small pattern, i.e., one in which a complete pattern repeat may be defined completely within the area of a single carpet tile. Such patterns, however, carry a significant potential disadvantage. In many cases, otherwise well-placed design elements appear to align into rows, resulting in large-scale pattern anomalies when multiple carpet tiles, comprising large areas of installed carpet, are viewed, especially at relatively low sight angles. Such pattern anomalies, sometimes referred to as “design lines,” can be sufficiently severe as to become visually obtrusive and overwhelm the intended overall pattern.
Added to such inherent design-based problems is the fact that the patterning process can occasionally cause slight periodic non-uniformities to occur within the pattern, such as the uneven application of dye within a pattern element or background area, resulting in a local streak or band. When viewed as individual tiles, such periodic non-uniformities are relatively unobtrusive, but when a series of such tiles carrying the same non-uniformity are installed over a larger area, such non-uniformities can become aligned, thereby emphasizing these manufacturing artifacts and forming visually obtrusive streaks or bands that extend over many carpet tiles. For purposes herein, these pattern anomalies, design lines, and manufacturing artifacts shall be collectively referred to as “patterning artifacts.”
It is believed that both seam discontinuities and patterning artifacts are emphasized by the choice of the size of the pattern repeat and the subconscious expectation of uniformity or symmetry that is generated by seeing a relatively large expanse of carpet tiles, all having the same pattern. Accordingly, in order to minimize or eliminate such discontinuities and artifacts, the use of a non-repeating design that shares common colors and design elements among adjacent tiles, has been found to be effective in eliminating the subconscious expectation of uniformity or symmetry, thereby minimizing the visual impact of patterning artifacts as well as seam discontinuities.
A challenge in implementing this technique is developing a system by which non-repeating patterns can be generated and printed at the time of manufacture. It is possible to achieve a pseudo-random appearance using a relatively small number of different design elements on individual carpet tiles, and then rotating the tiles during installation to produce a more random-appearing overall pattern. However, because this involves turning the tiles to orient them in different directions during installation, the pile orientation of the individual tiles is also turned, which results in a variety of problems, including watermarking or sheen (difference in light reflectivity from tile to tile) and seam problems (dramatic pile lay changes at boundaries).
Accordingly, the technique disclosed herein is believed superior, as these problems are generally avoided. The technique described herein provides a series of carpet tiles that carry a pattern that is non-repeating not only with respect to the selection and placement of design elements, but, optionally, also with respect to the orientation of the pattern on the carpet tile, thereby allowing for an installation that preserves a single direction for pile lay. Additionally, this technique allows for certain geometric operations to be performed on the pattern to enhance the appearance of pattern randomness, if desired. As an additional advantage of the pattern generation system disclosed herein, at least one common design element or motif is incorporated into the design to serve as a visually unifying element across all tiles in the installation. Accordingly, the patterns generated in accordance with the teachings herein and carried by the carpet tiles exhibit a distinct “random” or “pseudo-random” appearance and, individually, are each unique, but these patterns always have at least one design element that is expressed across all generated patterns, thus imparting an underlying uniformity to the carpet tile installation. As an additional benefit, the random or pseudo-random elements incorporated into the design tend to mask any visually obtrusive, large-scale design lines that frequently appear as the unintended artifacts of the design or manufacturing process, as well as any unintended mis-matching of patterns or colors at the boundaries of the individual tiles.
By use of the design system described herein, the designer has at her disposal an automated technique that, with minimal designer input, can generate an endless series of unique patterns that share a common artistic theme or motif and that are suitable for use in patterning carpet tiles or other floor coverings, as well as other textile products. In particular, the system disclosed herein is especially suited for use in patterning carpet tiles or other textiles using the application of interruptible dye streams under the control of electronically-defined patterns and electronically-controlled dye applicators that are actuated in accordance with digitally-defined patterns. In such applications in which electronically-defined patterns are accessed and processed as part of the patterning process, the system disclosed herein effectively re-locates a portion of the design process to the actual patterning step in the manufacturing process, where it can proceed without designer intervention.